Month: March 2022 (Page 1 of 4)

–Mowed the lawn. Finished tearing down old trellis in back.

–Swapped blade locks between Shiro Arctic Storm and Mars Valley. Both work fine now. Going with Mars (at the moment) as it’s better centered. I’m fickle, though.

–Finished repairing Southard Daws on which I broke a tiny screw. Filled the (too large after drilling out the broken piece of screw) hole with steel epoxy, drilled with new cobalt drill bit, tapped. Had to shorten AND reduce head diameter of new screw, but all is good now.

–Parker Doric pen and pencil set came in. Thinking of cleaning out the pen ink tube and refilling with syringe, as this seems to be the only Parker pen that doesn’t take a standard Parker refill.

–Bit driver handle came in, fairly nice. On another AliExpress purchase, they seem to have my Indian Wells address. Crap.

–Went around and around with Ilya from rusblades on paying for a knife and (my real aim) several sets of screws. Turns out BofA won’t send international wires to Russia. Crap.

–Played with knives. MAY have gotten the lock on the Arctic Storm to engage reliably. Much selling to do. Prices seem to be going down on facebook, up on eBay (except for the $650 Ursus I paid $1,150 for).

–Got 11 sesame and 2 plain bagels at Noah’s.

–Lots of stuff came in: 2-56 screws for fixing Southard Daws; Shiro radiator bead; Riaan Manser P6 knife (really beautiful); Simpsons faux ruby Centenary Colonel XXL (gorgeous brush, and I was able to polish out the chip in the base (not perfectly, but darn well)); license plates for Mini Cooper.

–My back is considerably better, maybe 80%.

–Played with knives. After hours of back-and-forth, decided on the blue Quantum 1 and the “crazy micarta” Elmax F95–due to centering and action. Then another nice F95 popped up on eBay. Crap.

–Grace discovered (caused) some sprinkler issues by the bamboo. Will try and fix tomorrow.

–Went to the Folsom farmers market with Grace; got stuff.

–Took a shower.

–Parker Doric refill came in. Looks like every other Parker refill, but way too fat to fit in the pen. I’m guessing nobody makes those skinny refills any more.

–Called Devon’s about the 1803 I dropped off for service SEVEN MONTHS ago. They said it had been there for 10 days and apologized for the mis-communication. I picked it up. (a) It does not look like a Rolex service: scratches on the caseback and under the lugs, and a small ding on the “fat” part of the case at the crown. (b) The service card said date of service was 12/2/21: Devon’s has had that watch for four months! What a friggin’ disaster. Off to eBay I guess.

–Made pizza for dinner. Pretty good.

–Dropped off the red Sub at FedEx.

–Shirogorov Hati came in. Too small. I really have to stop buying knives without knowing how big they are.

–Red Submariner came in. Magnificent watch (perfect on the Timegrapher), but the lume was just like on a Steinhart. I know Rolex came first, but I just couldn’t handle that lume. So I’m returning it.

–After breaking several drill bits, I finally got the broken screw out of the Southard Daws backspacer. I re-threaded it, but it’s not perfect. Might have to get longer screws to make it work right. Could be tough, since two screws go into the same hole from opposite sides–which may be how I broke a screw off, come to think of it. Longer screws might meet in the middle of the backspacer before they fully tightened down.

–Got 10 Rolexes sorted out, ready to send to Kirill Yuzh for consignment. Decided to keep a nice 5513 from 1967, with fabulous meters first dial/hands, fat (though polished) case, original rivet bracelet, long 5 insert. Lug holes are still round and sharp, so it wasn’t heavily polished. Decided to sell the Sea-Dweller: very nice watch, but we’ll stick to Subs. Also selling the Daytona and Bluesy: just too much money to keep tied up in things you can’t live in or drive.

–Got about 13 more Shirogorovs coming in. Time to start selling.

–Shirogorov pivot finally came in from Russia.

–Southard Knives stuff came in: refinished blade for the Daws XL (I installed; broke a small screw in the process) and beautiful new Tolk, nicely centered.

–Shirogorov F95 “Mars Valley” came in, with SRBS. Managed to get it open (not easily) without damaging anything. Pretty nice now.